


Hope

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - World War I, And a lot of dialogue, Angst, But with hope perhaps, M/M, Strangers meeting in a shitty place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:18:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: They told him to run and he ran and certainly there was a point in all this but all he could think about was the boy in the trench.





	Hope

There was a boy who used to sit next to him in the trench. At first he ignored the boy as he back then ignored pretty much everything he could including the thought that he would die here, he would never again go home and that was for nothing because there was no point in all this. The thought was quiet at first but persistent and, he thought later, the more he tried to cut it off the more it grew. And as he sat there breathing in and out and waiting for the end that certainly was to come, there was a boy sitting next to him.  
  
It was October 1916 and he had been there for one and a half years although he sometimes wondered if he had ever been anywhere else. He thought he had had a vague idea that he was doing something important or at least _something_ but after July it seemed pretty obvious they all were there just to get killed. He had run when they had asked him to and when almost everyone else had been killed he had turned back, run back through the mud and fallen over a man who had lost a card game last night and had now been staring at the sky looking almost surprised. When he had got back to the trench he had been certain they’d shoot him for being a coward but later it had turned out that they only picked a few because even they couldn’t shoot everyone who had turned back.  
  
But it was hopeless. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it in the beginning. After July it seemed it was the only thing he saw. He kept waiting for the day when they would ask him to run again and he would know he was going to die. And until then he tried to avoid talking to people because everyone seemed like an idiot or a bit cruel or perhaps they just had to pretend because that was the basis of what they were doing there. But since that boy from East London had patted him on the shoulder out of nowhere and said _at least you aren’t a fucking faggot_ he had kept away from them the best he could. Anyway he was going to die soon enough.  
  
And there was a boy. After the first really cold night he realised he was sitting next to the boy and that he didn’t know how long either of them had been there. The boy had sharp narrow grey eyes and a mouth that was always tightly shut like he had been despising of them all in the silence. For some reason it was enchanting. He kept watching the boy from the corner of his eye. _Enchanting_ , he thought, _adorable_ , and fucking hell how those idiots would have called him a faggot if they had read his mind. Sometimes he thought no one could actually see him though, so probably he could stare at the boy as much as he wanted before he would die.  
  
_Just an ordinary bloke_ , he thought, _an ordinary bloke with sharp eyes and something in the way he keeps pulling his shoulders back like he’s trying to bear with us all. He’s probably just like the rest of them.  
  
_ “Cigarette?” the boy said one evening.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I asked if you want a cigarette.” The boy was now watching him with those eyes and it made him weirdly nervous even though of course the boy couldn’t know what was going on inside his head. “Fine. Just thought I’d ask.”  
  
“I don’t really smoke,” he said and then bit at his lip that tasted a lot like mud at this point.  
  
The boy frowned at him. “Really? It’s the only thing that keeps me in my right mind. Or I think it does. I wouldn’t know, would I?”  
  
“I think you’re fine,” he said. His cheeks felt a bit warm and the boy was watching him, _watching him_ , and he wanted to go away but of course that wasn’t a possibility. “I mean, I don’t think you’ve gone mad.”  
  
“And how would you know?” the boy asked in a quiet voice but sounded rather interested.  
  
He couldn’t find anything to say and of course the boy was right. _Are you alright_ , his mother had written in the latest letter. It had been in August and he had kept blinking at the words, _are you alright, are you alright,_ because what the hell he was so supposed to answer to that.  
  
“Just so that you know,” the boy said now, “I wasn’t implying that you’d be crazy or anything. Although I wouldn’t be surprised. Figure what they’re going to think when all this ends one day and we go home and suddenly there’re thousands and thousands of us in the normal world.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said and leant against the wall. It had been raining a lot this week and that was why his boots were in the mud and he was sitting in the mud and he got slightly irritated about how little he cared.  
  
“So what’s your name?”  
  
“How long have you been here?” he said and the other boy stared at him like having been personally a little bit offended that he hadn’t already said his name. “I mean, _here._ Not in France. But here. Because I don’t think I’ve seen you.”  
  
“Four weeks,” the boy said, “although I was quite near before that too.”  
  
“You were here in July.”  
  
“Yeah,” the boy said and lit up another cigarette. “I’m Sirius Black.”  
  
“You’re what?”  
  
“My name. Now you tell me yours or you’re being just rude.”  
  
“So, good education?”  
  
“It’s all the same in here,” the boy said, _Sirius Black_ said, and _shit_ it was a bad thing to give anything a name here. “Okay, if you don’t want to tell me I’ll name you myself. Bill.”  
  
He chuckled. “I look like a _Bill?_ ”  
  
“Bill is a good name,” Sirius said, “stop whining and take it, Bill. So how old are you, Bill?”  
  
“Twenty-one, but I’m not –“  
  
“Bill,” Sirius said, frowning, “you’re pretty young to drown yourself into mud like this. How’re you feeling about that?”  
  
“Remus Lupin.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“I’m Remus Lupin. Now stop calling me Bill.”  
  
“I’m pretty certain you aren’t crazy yet,” Sirius said, “because if you were you might have let me call you Bill.”  
  
“I would never.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear,” Sirius said, “Remus. Tell me where you’re from.”  
  
He shouldn’t have. Sirius was watching him and he pushed his back against the wall and felt the stare creeping under his skin although it was impossible. Perhaps he really had gone mad. But he couldn’t remember when someone had watched him and seen him. “Wales.”  
  
“Ah,” Sirius said, “that’s a big place. Care to elaborate?”  
  
“You going to visit me there?”  
  
Sirius licked his upper lip and it seemed like a senseless gesture, completely out of place, and still he froze. _Shit._ In the first months he had sometimes wondered if something like this happened eventually. There would be a handsome bloke who would smile at him and he would smile back but in a wrong way and they would know and then he didn’t know what would happen. But it seemed the war had drawn it out of him somehow, not all of it of course but you really couldn’t watch a boy in the clothes of a soldier, ready to climb off the trench and run and fall, and still have a crush on them. Except that apparently you could. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his hands that were now trembling slightly against his knees. Sirius Black was still looking at him.  
  
“Ah,” Sirius said. “I might. I’ve never been to Wales.”  
  
“You might,” he said in a hoarse voice. Sometimes he thought he had had a cold since March 1915.  
  
Sirius nodded. “Gladly. And what would you do then?”  
  
His heart was beating quite fast and he really felt a bit sick. “I’d invite you in, of course. A polite thing to do.”  
  
“Yeah. And you’d introduce me to your mother.”  
  
“I suppose if we ever get back home we’ll be a bit too old to live with our mothers.”  
  
“Oh, come on. I’d shake your mother’s hand. She’d like me. I’m very good at things like that, you know, shaking someone’s hand. And then you’d take me to your room.”  
  
“And why the hell would I do that,” he said and tried to steady his breath but it seemed to be out of control like everything else.  
  
“You tell me that,” Sirius said. The boy had put the cigarette away and was now watching him his both hands lying in his lap looking too still.  
  
“Look,” he said. His voice was trembling but fuck that. “If you want to make fun of me, this is your cue. You don’t have to play that game anymore. You can just skip right ahead to… whatever it is.”  
  
“I don’t,” Sirius said. “You know, I once kissed a boy. Behind the stables.”  
  
“Behind the stables,” he said.  
  
“My family had horses. Has horses. My heart was beating so much and I was in a terrible rush, you know, I think I was mostly afraid that someone would catch us. So it was pretty quick. But good. It was also good.”  
  
“Fine,” he said.  
  
“Have you ever?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You would, though.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“Good,” Sirius said and turned his gaze away from him. He took a sharp breath and then almost laughed out loud because what the hell, he was waiting for his death here and now there was this boy who said absurd things like that, and now that Sirius wasn’t looking at him he could stare at the boy’s hands and fingers and arms and neck and jaw and ear and he knew Sirius knew he was watching but he didn’t particularly care.  
  
“You come here often?” Sirius said, watching the opposite wall.  
  
“Every fucking day.”  
  
“Good. So I’ll see you again.”  
  
“ _Good?_ ”  
  
“Tell me you haven’t stopped thinking about your own certain death for at least five minutes when we’ve been talking.”  
  
He swallowed. “Thinking about my own certain death?”  
  
“I can see it in your face,” Sirius said, “that you’re that kind of a person. That kind who thinks about how they’re going to die soon.”  
  
“So what else is there?”  
  
“To think about? Well, I’ve been sitting near to noisy people. Some of them think about how this all is going to fucking end soon and they’re going to get back home and sleep with their wives or marry their girlfriends or hug their kids or pick a fight with their neighbour about where the fence should go or whose apple tree is bigger or whatever.”  
  
“Apple tree?”  
  
“You kind of keep second-guessing everything I say.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“No, I like it. But don’t tell me you have a wife back in Wales.”  
  
“I don’t have a wife,” he said and there seemed to be something stuck in his throat. “Fuck no.”  
  
“So you’re a brave kind then,” Sirius said, “the kind who doesn’t marry a nice girl because they’re supposed to.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know how to get a nice girl to marry me,” he said, “not that I would anyway.”  
  
“Oh, I think someone would be happy to have you,” Sirius said slowly, “someone.”  
  
“We should stop flirting,” he said and thought his voice was going to crack.  
  
“Over my dead body.”  
  
“You’re not really supposed to use that saying in here.”  
  
“Why not? For the first time it means anything.”  
  
“We’re supposed to think we’ll live through this.”  
  
“Oh,” Sirius said, “we will. I’ll visit you in Wales. You’ll have to remember to give me your address. I’ll show up unannounced and you have been pining and you’re grumpy and you’ve probably just got out of bed because you tend to sleep long these days. You’re a bit sad, you know, partly because you’re surprised you survived and don’t know what to do with it but mostly because you miss me. And then your mother opens the door and I say _hi Mrs. Lupin, is Remus home, I want to play with him_ , and she calls you over her shoulder and you come there with your messy, wearing some ridiculous clothes I suppose, like probably you haven’t bought anything after the war and so they’re all too small but you keep ignoring it. And you look shocked and probably you blush and your mother looks at you very suspiciously but I only keep smiling, I used to be very good at smiling before all this and I reckon I’ll learn again. _So._ You’ll say _hi Sirius_ and I’ll say _hi Remus_ and the tension will be incredible. Your mother thinks it’s perhaps best to leave us to it. We go to your room. You’re pretty much shaking. I think it’s adorable. You close the door and look at me and take sharp breaths like you’re doing now, see, you’re trying to calm down but you can’t, and I grab your shoulders and lean closer even though actually I don’t remember how to do it. And then we’ll kiss.”  
  
“Fuck,” he said with a shaky breath as Sirius stopped talking and looked at him with a slow grin, “ _fuck,_ why would you… what was the point of that fucking… story...“  
  
“Just wanted to give you something else to think about,” Sirius said, “so now every time you think the odds are that you’ll be dead in a few months you have to think about what you would miss.”  
  
“That’s actually cruel.”  
  
“No it’s not,” Sirius said, “it’s hope. I have to go now. I’m supposed to be taking care of all the shit we have in here.”  
  
“Is that a metaphor.”  
  
“No,” Sirius said, “a few weeks ago I said something slightly stupid to this moron who also happens to be my sergeant. I’m actually already late but it’s not like they can give me a shittier job than I already have.”  
  
“Maybe they’ll sack you.”  
  
“You’re really picking up with the hope thing, Lupin,” Sirius said and stood up, ”good for you. I’ll see you later, soldier.”  
  
“Fuck you,” he said and then bit his lip. Sirius stared at him sharp eyes going right through his skin, and he thought about how every day kind of a line that was, _my girl sent me a letter_ , _fuck you Collins, I think I got my ankle sprained, fuck you Andrews, oh the sun is shining, fuck you fuck you fuck you._ And now this very pretty boy in a worn uniform was standing in front of him with a frozen look on his face, like he had been weighting it, and then finally he turned around and walked away and the sound of boots in the mud went with him. Remus closed his eyes. The rain grew stronger.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I thought I’d find you here.”  
  
“How was the rest of your day?”  
  
“Shitty,” Sirius said and sat down next to him. It had been a quiet night and a quiet morning. They had been told there would be a next battle soon but it seemed they had been waiting for it for a long time. Apparently someone somewhere was fighting this war right now as Sirius Black lit up a cigarette and raised an eyebrow at Remus and he declined. But it seemed to be happening somewhere else. He tried not to think about the Germans in their trenches barely a few hundred meters away because probably they were as cold as he was and also liked this whole business as little as he did. Once or twice he had fired his gun but he kept missing and probably it was on purpose. Usually he just run. That seemed to be pretty much the whole point of it.  
  
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you,” Sirius said now, staring at his own fingers.  
  
“And what is that?”  
  
“Fuck you right back.”  
  
“Oh,” he said and bit his lip because he was going to laugh out and wasn’t that weird. “That’s very rude of you.”  
  
“No,” Sirius said slowly. Possibly Sirius’ neck was getting a bit red but it was a grey day and they were pretty much sitting in a hole in the ground so he couldn’t really have known. “I think you’d like it.”  
  
“So you know what you’re doing.”  
  
Sirius opened his mouth and closed it and then glanced at him. “You’re a weird kid. You look so unhappy. I thought the only thing you would talk about would be how we’re going to die.”  
  
“Don’t call me a kid. It’s a bit weird.”  
  
“I didn’t realise,” Sirius said, “until I licked my lips and you stared at my mouth.”  
  
“I’ll ask it straight. Do you know what you’re doing?”  
  
“Fuck no. I’ve never done it. Sounds like it’s a bit difficult.”  
  
“You want me to comment on that?”  
  
“Go ahead.”  
  
“We could do it,” he said. He was quite certain Sirius was as nervous as he was which was quite much, but also he was sitting in the trench waiting for an order to climb that ladder and run until someone shot him. “I’ve only heard, like, drunk talk about it. All kind of nonsense. I think they all try to make it sound dreadful so that no one starts to think they might have done it themselves. So it’s pretty hard to know.”  
  
“But we could do it.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said. There was more mud today than there had been yesterday. He was wet ‘till his waist. He shifted a little and it didn’t help at all, and Sirius kept watching him with wide eyes. “I would let you.”  
  
“You only met me yesterday.”  
  
“Remember my certain death,” he said, “and I’ve seen you before. I just try to avoid talking to people as a general rule.”  
  
“I can see why,” Sirius said and licked his lower lip. “I think you’re blushing but it’s hard to tell because you have mud on your face.”  
  
“Right back at you.”  
  
“So you won’t tell me if you’re blushing.”  
  
“Probably. I don’t know. But you’re because you keep asking.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “I don’t think I’ve ever… talked about it. Like, with an actual person who might…”  
  
“Who’s interested.”  
  
“It’s crazy.”  
  
“We can’t do it here, though,” he said. “You know that.”  
  
“But you think you’re going to die.”  
  
“There’s too much mud,” he said and Sirius watched him carefully as if they had actually been talking about doing it there, “and too many people, and with my luck they’d shoot up the whole trench right when we are doing it and I really don’t want to die like that. It’s not very romantic.”  
  
“Romantic,” Sirius said very slowly.  
  
“I like you,” he said, “and you aren’t going to make me get fucked on my knees in the mud.”  
  
“I like you too. But I wish I would also know you.”  
  
“So where’re you from? You said you have horses.”  
  
“We have a house in London,” Sirius said, “and a house in York, and when I say _a house_ I mean –“  
  
“You’re a posh boy,” he said and Sirius bit at his lower lip. “I should have known. All the _excuse me_ and _I kissed a boy behind the stables._ ”  
  
“Excuse me,” Sirius said frowning, “is a –“  
  
“So you’re rich. What’s your title?”  
  
“I’m going to be an earl.”  
  
“I should call you m’lord,” he said and then clenched his fists because for a second he had thought about touching Sirius’ arm. “I’m just teasing you. I’m not going to call you m’lord. Not even if you beg.”  
  
“You’re –,” Sirius said and blinked, “I don’t even know what you are. I keep thinking you’re this shy boy from Wales but then you say something that is quite...”  
  
“But shouldn’t you be, like, sitting in a warm office somewhere? I didn’t think rich kids like you would go crawling in the mud like the rest of us.”  
  
“I haven’t been exactly cooperating. And, you now, it’s not looking like I’m going to marry a pretty girl and have a bunch of sons which kind of is the essence of it. So perhaps I’ll be poor when I come knocking on your door.”  
  
“You aren’t really saying that.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s a difficult choice,” Sirius said, “worrying about how you’re going to keep that two hundred years old house in shape so that you can give it to your son whom you aren’t going to have because that would require marrying someone you can’t love that way. That against kissing your pretty face in your cottage in Wales.”  
  
“It’s not a cottage,” he said and realised they were probably in middle of some kind of a weird staring contest. He almost thought Sirius was daring him to back off now that the earldom and all that had been mentioned. But sometimes he thought he didn’t remember how anything else looked like than what he could see from the bottom of the trench. “It’s a very small farm house.”  
  
“Kissing your pretty face in your very small farm house then.”  
  
“My pretty face.”  
  
“You want more?” Sirius asked and leant closer. “I like your mouth. I think sometimes you’re biting back a smile but your mouth just doesn’t do it as fast as your mind tells it to. And sometimes you press it tightly shut like you’re trying to focus on something. On me. Probably me because there’s really nothing else here.”  
  
“You’re right.”  
  
“And I like how ridiculously skinny you are,” Sirius said, “must be, under those stupid clothes. You keep shifting your feet like you aren’t sure how to hold those long limbs you have.”  
  
“The food here isn’t very good.”  
  
“I suppose if I touched you,” Sirius said, “and don’t blush like that, I mean if you were standing in the doorway of your very small farm house in Wales and you were wearing only a t-shirt or something and I put a hand on your back, I would feel your shoulder blades and your back bone and everything. And of course if you took that t-shirt off –“  
  
He took a shaky breath. Sirius smiled at him.  
  
“Yes. I’d take it off for you. I’d stand right in front you and your eyes would keep moving on my face and I’d just keep my hand on your back very lightly and then I’d lower it so that it would rest just above your, sorry, your ass. And you’d be breathing in and out and I could probably see it and hear it and you would be _right there._ ”  
  
“It wouldn’t work,” he said, a bit out of breath, “it’s pretty cold in Wales.”  
  
“You needy thing,” Sirius said, “you’re just complaining so that I have to take you to bed.”  
  
“ _Shit._ ”  
  
“Tell me.”  
  
“It’s narrow. And it creaks. A lot.”  
  
“So you’re lying on your back now,” Sirius said, “but I’m still standing, and you lean on your elbows and watch me take off my clothes. And your eyes go all wide.”  
  
He laughed out aloud and then bit his lip because they weren’t actually alone and he definitely didn’t want anyone to come to ask what was so funny. And besides Sirius looked a bit hurt.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Sorry,” he said and swallowed. “So you take your shirt off and my eyes get wide because you’re so handsome in all your naked glory.”  
  
“I am,” Sirius said, “I _am_ , shit, you’re definitely joking.”  
  
“I would like to see all your naked glory. One day.”  
  
“But you would like me,” Sirius said, biting his lip, “would you? I mean, I’m not probably as skinny as you are if that’s the kind of thing you’re into, and I don’t have chest hair so I kind of look like I’m still seventeen, but otherwise I’m –“  
  
“I have,” Remus said, “so we’ve got it covered.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Chest hair. Of course I would like you, you idiot. Your aristocratic jaw alone would be enough for me.”  
  
Sirius placed his hand onto his jaw. “I got my jaw from my father so it’s not really my –“  
  
“Shut up, it wasn’t a joke, I really like your jaw. And everything. And I don’t care about you being posh and all unless you want me to call you by your title when you’re –“  
  
“When I’m what?”  
  
“I don’t know how to say it.”  
  
“Yes you do,” Sirius said. “Come on.”  
  
“So we are back to talking about it.”  
  
“I think so. So far I think I’ve got my shirt off and you’re staring at my jaw.”  
  
“I don’t have a thing for your jaw, I was just trying to say that it’s generally quite appealing –“  
  
“And I take my trousers off now,” Sirius said. “Are you holding your breath?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Good. _Good_. I think I’m weirdly nervous considering that I’ve been naked before, like, I don’t have anything against being naked, but it just seems so different when –“  
  
“When I’m watching.”  
  
“Now I’m walking towards you, you’re lying on your creaky bed, remember? I stop beside the bed. And I’d like to… I’d like to undress you. The rest of you. If you let me.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Can I sit there,” Sirius said, “on your bed? Perhaps between your legs?”  
  
“Probably not,” he said, “it really is a narrow bed. But fuck that, you’re sitting there now. Between my legs. Did you take your pants off already?”  
  
“Yes. Along with my trousers.”  
  
“Good,” he said, “so I’m watching you now, all of you. You look nervous. And you’re blushing.”  
  
“I’m not blushing.”  
  
“Yes you are,” he said, “and it’ll be very obvious as you aren’t covered in mud then. But don’t worry. I like it. And I like… I also like your…”  
  
“You like my cock,” Sirius said and there was something very nervous in his voice.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I can’t believe we are talking about… this.”  
  
“I will touch it later,” he said and saw Sirius swallowing, “but not yet. Now you’ll have to get me off my trousers.”  
  
“When you’re lying on your back right in front of me.”  
  
“Just do it,” he said trying to make his voice as low as he could and it was probably a bit ridiculous but Sirius watched him with wide eyes and mouth half-open. “Come on. Do it.”  
  
Sirius nodded.  
  
“Tell me.”  
  
“I like you,” Sirius said, “I like you a lot. I kind of think it’s about more than just… that you’re now lying there naked. I think I fancy you, or that I have a crush on you, or that I’ve fallen –“  
  
“Not a right time to talk about that,” he said, “I’m waiting and I’m naked.”  
  
“But it is,” Sirius said, “because I don’t want you to think that it’s just about…”  
  
“I don’t think that.”  
  
“Because I really like you. And I would like to meet your family, like, I could sit at a dinner table and talk with your mother and father and I would be very charming and they’d probably like me and couldn’t help it even though they guessed what we –“  
  
“Stop talking about my mom when we’re trying to do it.”  
  
“I don’t really know how.”  
  
“Just touch me,” he said, “touch me, and I’ll touch you back. It’ll be fine. I only want you to –“  
  
Sirius leant closer and touched his arm.  
  
“Fuck,” he said and let out a shaky breath, “what the...” and Sirius kept his fingers still and looked him in the eyes and there was a slow rain falling down onto the mud in the bottom of the trench and he heard faintly men arguing further away.  
  
“I’ll back off if you want,” Sirius said.  
  
“No,” he said, “of course not, it’s just… it’s a lot.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius said and squeezed his arm lightly.  
  
“Can you,” he said and swallowed, “can you touch my face? Without your gloves.”  
  
“Someone will see.”  
  
“Fuck that. I’m going to die anyway.”  
  
“No you aren’t,” Sirius said and pulled his hand away. He watched as Sirius carefully took off his gloves and pushed them into his pockets probably so that they wouldn’t be full of mud in the end of it. He swallowed and stayed still as Sirius raised his left hand and very slowly pressed his fingertips against his cheek.  
  
He breathed in and out. Sirius’ fingers were warm on his skin and Sirius’ eyes kept watching him like they had been in his narrow creaky bed in his small house in Wales and not here. He realised there was something wet on his face but well, it was raining.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He thought at least one of them was going to die because that was the way it was. But if for some goddamn reason he got out alive, for the rest of his life every time he touched himself he would probably think about Sirius. He told Sirius that one rainy morning when they had been talking for five days and he had found out Sirius had a younger brother who was dead and that Sirius wouldn’t talk about him no matter how genuinely Remus asked. Sirius had smoked a cigarette watching the opposite wall with a frown and Remus had said quietly to himself that it was okay he had been surprised that there was something that went so deep down under Sirius’ skin that the boy would stop talking. After all everything seemed a bit surreal in the war. It just wasn’t possible it all was true.  
  
“So you’re saying that I die,” Sirius said now watching him and not the other wall which he considered a small victory.  
  
“No,” he said, “of course not. I say that if I got out alive –“  
  
“You also said we can’t both make it.”  
  
“I was just trying to say… something nice.”  
  
“You have a very weird conception of _nice,_ ” Sirius said but smiled, “but I like it.”  
  
“And it’s possible that we both live,” he said and bit his lip.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“So what I was trying to say,” he said, “was perhaps that I don’t think I’ll ever get you out of my system.”  
  
“You’ll always love me desperately.”  
  
He swallowed. “You can’t say that.”  
  
“I only said it so that you don’t have to,” Sirius said, throwing quick glances at him. Last night he had tried to sleep and failed and all that had been going on in his head had been that he wanted to live, he fucking wanted to live because there was this boy sitting next to him in the trench and if he ever got out of there, he would grab the boy’s face inside his palms and kiss him on his mouth. “Imagine if I die tomorrow and you never had the guts to say it.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Fine?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Good,” Sirius said and lit up another cigarette. “Obviously I feel the same. So what if we both live?”  
  
“You could send me a letter. I’d come anywhere.”  
  
“Anywhere?”  
  
“In England or Wales. Maybe even Scotland. Ireland too if I have enough money but that’s pretty much it.”  
  
“I knew it,” Sirius said, “I knew there was a limit to your desperate love.”  
  
“I’m fucking afraid,” he said and tried to keep it from his voice but he could see from Sirius’ eyes he was failing with that, “you know, and it’s your fault. I kind of didn’t care anymore. I was so certain about what would happen. And now I keep hoping so much my heart is going in pieces.”  
  
“Sorry,” Sirius said in a very quiet voice.  
  
“Tell me it’s the same for you.”  
  
“I think there’re two kinds of people,” Sirius said and swallowed, “those who think about death all the time and those who think they’re never going to die.”  
  
“In the war, you mean.”  
  
“Or in life.”  
  
“You don’t think you’re going to die.”  
  
“I can’t imagine it. But take a bullet and it goes through me all the same. So I don’t really know which option is worse, to be scared or to be oblivious.”  
  
“I’m sorry about your brother.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Sirius said and cast the cigarette aside. “And so that you know, I’m kind of afraid of the thought that I wouldn’t get to come to your home in Wales. To see you. After all this.”  
  
“I’ll be waiting for you there,” he said and felt a bit hollow.  
  
“I kind of thought that was why you kept talking about it,” Sirius said, “you know, about sleeping with me. I thought you were certain it wouldn’t happen and that was why could talk about it.”  
  
“It will happen.”  
  
“You aren’t fooling anyone, Lupin,” Sirius said, “you’re still afraid.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“We would probably have never met if it wasn’t for this madness. Think about that.”  
  
“I’m thinking,” he said, although he really was thinking about how Sirius would stand in his bedroom in the very small farm house in Wales one day in the future that was not yet completely impossible.  
  
  
**  
  
  
After two days it began. He tried to find Sirius but it was too late and he had to stand in line and wait for his turn to climb up the ladder when the gunfire would cease. His heart was beating and it felt like it filled his whole body, his whole uniform, everything he was. Sirius had been right, of course. He wished he had had guts to say it out aloud but he was glad Sirius had said it for him.  
  
It was raining again and he was soaking wet even before he got to the ladder.  
  
And they told him to run and he ran and certainly there was a point in all this but all he could think about was the boy in the trench.

**Author's Note:**

> Another World War AU and also another Meeting as Strangers kind of AU, oh here we go. I'm not an expert of this era so if you notice something that went wrong please feel free to go ahead and tell me. Also I'd like to point out that Paths of Glory may or may not have affected on how I see some things that are mentioned in this story. And it seems I've lost my commas but I kind of like it at the moment.
> 
> As always, you can say hi to me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com) :)


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